Radegast Hall of Williamsburg Brooklyn is part of a series of tidbits from the chapters of my book Bars, Taverns and Dives New Yorkers Love, published by Rizzoli. You can order it online at Powell’s, Amazon, Rizzoli, and Barnes & Noble. Signed prints of the bars in the book are available here.

Walk into Radegast Hall & Biergarten, take in the spacious, woody bar room and its handsome red oak bar, then hang a sharp right and go into the biergarten. Usually I prefer sitting at a bar, but the biergarten—that’s where the soul of this place is, with the big communal tables, the skylights they crank open on nice days, and the grill. Like the kitchen is the “heart of a house,” the grill room/biergarten is the heart of Radegast.

It’s wide open in there, the ceiling peaking over 20 feet above the folks at tables on both sides of the long room. Their voices bounce all over the place. You smell something enticing and summery, and there at the end of the room you see the grillmeister flipping sausages and burgers, fan-pulled smoke brushing past their face.

Ah, this is good. Take a seat. Order a beer from one of the busy women clad in black and scarlet. Order a pretzel while you’re at it. They’re huge, the size of a steering wheel, speckled with rocky salt and served with fresh, spicy/sweet house mustard. Oh, and they’re baked to order, so they come to you hot as the blazes of Hades and blessed with a sort of rigid, bagel-y outer shell and steaming, pillowy innards. Want bier cheese with that? Yes, you do, but this pretzel is so good, you don’t really need it.

Next up:

The Pour House of Bay Ridge, a classic, no-frills, corner bar with generous pours, an excellent Sunday football scene, and a helluva fine host in owner Chris Byrne. It’s another chapter of my book Bars, Taverns and Dives New Yorkers Love, which you can order right here. Limited-edition signed prints of the bars are available here.